He prizes "the expertness of the man rather than the man himself" because this is what really counts in the "bureaucratized and organized society" in which he lives.
This man ran around Athens from one market to another, tried fish, vegetables, meat, chose with a gourmand's expertness the best there was to buy .
Technically they are expert, and in such nostalgic pictures of Manhattan as The Lafayette (reproduced opposite) the luminous depth of their color goes beyond mere expertness.